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Those who wish to leave – so a German saying – you should not seek to dissuade from so doing. To few people is the phrase more applicable than to Wolfgang Schäuble who is resigning the post of German finance minister and, with it, that of de facto head of the Euro Group. He held these roles since 2009, that is virtually since the onset of the Euro Area crisis. While the crisis and the associated double-dip recession was a failure that had many fathers, Dr. Schäuble was arguably the most wanton of those who, to paraphrase Keynes, blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which he does not understand.

On the other hand, the fact that someone who has caused much harm is leaving an influential post does not mean that his or her influence falls to zero. His arty certainly remains the dominant force in German politics. Nor, alas, does it necessarily mean that the successor will be an improvement: it seems likely that he or she will come from the liberal FDP which campaigned on a manifesto of rejecting any form of transfers or bail-outs, and threatening countries that fail to meet tough fiscal targets with being forced out of the single currency.

At his last Eurogroup meeting the departing German finance minister left a chilling message of his own in the form of a short non-paper on European economic policy. I will go through point by point, but the spoiler is simple: it represents a doubling down of believers in Maastricht and a complete rejection of all the risk-sharing and stability-promoting ideas tabled by the European authorities and, most vividly, by French President Macron. [Read more…]